Del 1 al 8 de agosto se celebrará en Roma, Italia, el XXV Congreso Mundial de Filosofía, «La filosofía más allá de las fronteras«, un evento multitudinario organizado por la Società Filosofica Italiana (SFI), la Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie (FISP) y la Sapienza Università de Roma. Alberto Molina Pérez, miembro de FiloLab, presentará, junto con Ramón Ortega Lozano, de la Universidad Pontificia Comillas, una comunicación titulada: «Do functions mean the same thing in medicine as they do in physiology, and why is this important in defining health, disease, and death?». A continuación reproducimos el resumen de la comunicación.
The concept of function is fundamental to medicine, as the biomedical model of health defines health as the absence of disease, and disease as a disruption of the normal functioning of the organism. However, we suspect that the use and meaning of the term «function» may differ between biology, theoretical medicine (physiology, pathology), and clinical medicine. Our hypothesis is that the term «function» has different uses and meanings in these three domains. While the philosophy of biology has debated the definition of function since the 1970s, a similar debate has not emerged in the philosophy of medicine. An analysis of the meaning and use of «function» in clinical medicine could lead to a more refined understanding of health and disease. Additionally, a proper analysis and definition of function in the context of medicine may contribute to the ongoing bioethics debate on the determination of death. The purpose of this communication is threefold: 1) to receive feedback from the audience to assess the soundness of the hypothesis; 2) to share the exciting prospect of exploring this unexplored conceptual ground, which could have important implications for practice and bioethical debates; and 3) to find like-minded collaborators interested in further investigating this question.
